Breaking through
by Jinxgirl
Summary: After Matt Murdock's apparent death, Jessica feels it should have gone far differently.


Jessica hated what Matt had done. Had anyone asked her opinion, she would have scoffed at the arrogant stupidity of his choice, the stubborn, single-minded determination he showed towards martyrdom and self-sacrifice. Who the hell would deliberately choose to stay in a collapsing building, knowing they could not escape it in time- all in an attempt to save a woman who wasn't even his current lover, a woman who had tried to kill him and most people that he knew?

Matthew Murdock, aka Devilboy, that was who. Never mind whether it was the smartest or best thing to do, never mind whether anyone else might want him to choose another response. In his mind, his death could do nothing but serve the greater good, and if someone had to die, he'd prefer it to be himself.

Jessica could hardly approve of his choice. But she could, in the darkest, private parts of her thoughts, understand and respect it, because she knew that if she were given the opportunity- had Matt not snatched it away from her- she would have done the same in place of him. And if she were given the chance in the future, she would fulfill the martyr role without flinching or experiencing any internal conflict at all.

Death, by way of self-sacrifice rather than straight up suicide, had not been something that Saint Matthew had had coming to him, and Jessica hated herself for letting it happen to this day. But it was something that Jessica Campbell Jones deserved, and she intended to make it happen if a situation in which it was a necessity arose.

She knew what she was without a need to hear it from anyone else, although the words were verbalized by others with some frequency. She was a drunk, an irresponsible, infuriating loose cannon who pushed people away with her barbed, bitter words, her prickly demeanor, and her impulsive, often dangerous decisions. She was aggressive and standoffish, stubborn and reckless, a drunken, paranoid, crazy bitch of a woman. She was too much for any normal person to want to deal with, and normal was the last word anyone would use in describing her.

There were other, kinder, more admiring words sometimes used in reference to her. Words like savvy and resourceful, determined and committed, loyal and fierce, strong and sharp-witted, beautiful and heroic. But those were words that Jessica shrugged off with dismissive discomfort, unable to keep them attached to herself as descriptors of accuracy. It was the other words that mattered, the other words that she used in self-definition. It was the other words that played in her mind with each failure, that continued to drive most of her actions.

Kilgrave, after all, had showered her with compliments, more than any other person in her lifetime. They had disgusted her then, left her shaky and weak with loathing towards both him and herself for her inability to protest his view and definition of her in favor of her own. How could she trust compliments from any others now, especially in light of the glaring flaws and failures that clung in a nearly visible dark cloud about her being?

She had almost been able to believe otherwise, with Luke- until, of course, he had come to realize the truth of just who she was and how she had fucked up his life. For some time Jessica had known he hated her, could feel the heat of his rage and disgust towards her even from the distance she made sure to keep between them. After Kilgrave's death and everything with the Hand mess, she could feel that he had cooled towards her, and any lingering anger had detached into a neutral sort of respect that nevertheless maintained knowledge of what she had done. He might have forgiven her for Reva, as much as was possible, but he had not forgotten, and Jessica would not have wanted him to. Even his forgiveness felt far more than she could accept.

Luke was with Claire now, from what she could determine. Still, Jessica wanted to be with him, one more time, and hoped that somehow that day would come when one more tryst would happen between them. She didn't want it because of love for him, or even because of the physical and sexual attraction that lingered in spite of her efforts to push it aside. She didn't want it as proof of his forgiveness; she would not be able to tolerate any further indication or evidence of this. She wanted to have sex with him so he could punish her. She wanted him to hurt her, to use her, to make her feel to the very bone how worthless she was, to have him mark her as the piece of shit he had once pronounced her to be. She wanted him to vent into her and her body how she had hurt him, the life that she had stolen from him in murdering his wife.

She didn't want him to make love to her, or even to have sex. She wanted him to fuck her, and she wanted it to ache and burn and leave her as battered and bruised on the outside as she felt within.

But Luke would never do that. He was too decent a man to do that to her, no matter how well deserved, and although Jessica could have easily found this in any number of others, it was Luke that she owed.

She could have lost herself in Trish, in an all too different way. She had hurt Trish too, perhaps not as severely and irreversibly, but with far more frequency than she had Luke, and while very much in control of her own actions and thoughts. Although Trish had never said it, she had implied with long looks and lingering touches, with kisses that lingered longer than could be quite labeled as platonic that she would be willing, should Jessica show the inclination, for a shift in their relationship from sisterly to sexual. But this was one disaster Jessica could not bring herself to rush into, not out of concern for herself, but for Trish. Trish would never hurt Jessica, not on purpose, and it would be so very easy and so very in character for Jessica to hurt Trish. Trish would love her as she always had. Trish would try to convince Jessica that she deserved love, that she was worth it, and Jessica could not believe that.

So Jessica isolated. It was far easier to punish herself alone than to count on others to do the work for her. She kept herself part, accompanied only by booze and self-loathing. She threw herself headfirst into danger not so much to even up the score of death and pain she had inflicted against the world, or to save lives to counterbalance those she had lost, as to put herself at greater risk than others. She intended that if someone had to die, she would be the one, instead of some naïve civilian who lacked even the power necessary to duck a punch to the face.

Jessica cracked herself open and laid herself bare, night after endless night, and each time she hoped that it would eventually take less for someone's blows against her to seek in deep enough to leave a lasting mark.


End file.
